What Happens When You Can’t Take It Any More?

I can’t recall a time in my life when I have thought about suicide more often, and when the fantasies were more realistic.

It was getting to the point that I seriously thought I might need to get the gun out of the house.

The other extremely low time in my life was when that woman burnt down the porta-potties at our tent village.

They were at the front of my building. Two portapotties full of shit create one hell of a fire. The brick was blackened all on that side of the building. The large window in that office was blown out. And the electricity in the metal conduit that ran down the side of the building was fried.

The fire department descended on the property. They swept through the entire building and found 4 elderly homeless people living inside.

They lectured me that if they had died, I would have gone to jail. It was illegal to let them live in a commercial building (every solution I’ve ever come up with to shelter homeless people ends up being illegal).

The entire scene just spiralled me into a deep depression.

After I paid $3000 to replace the electric wiring, a homeless guy came by that very night and ripped it out of the conduit. So I had to replace it again.

Cities decide they are going to end something, and it ends. That was the beginning of the end of the entire operation at 15 Broad Street.

I didn’t have the energy to fight it.

I don’t think even that time period was as depressing as this most recent dark spell.

Yesterday, I was trying to get a small nap before law school that started at 6:30. I got a call from the neighbor who lives next to my house, where I have 3 homeless guys living. He said one of them peed on the side of his house. I’m sure someone did.

There is a real possibility the city will find a way to make that end, too.

Within 5 minutes, I opened the mail and found a gas bill for $1,493.73. A couple of hundred of that was for this house where these 3 formerly homeless guys live. The rest was what I owed at the red house that was burnt down by a homeless man.

So much of my suffering has to do with homeless people. [Although, right now, most of my suffering has to do with other reasons. My dog died last week, we had to put my mother-in-law with dementia in a facility even though I swore to her I’d never make her do that, and I have to retake a law class because I shared too much with my assigned study group where I was supposed to be sharing things — apparently there was a magical line of sharing I stupidly crossed. That was an extremely painful and stressful lesson for my first semester of law school.]

On top of that, I’ve been trying to let go of my anger, which is working ok. But what I am finding is that under that anger is just a soft, defenseless underbelly that can’t take the heat. I had no idea how much my anger was a life-saving shield.

I think I’m going to be ok. (I didn’t have the energy to write this for the last several weeks. So, the mere fact you are reading it is a sign that I’m on the mend.)

At my worst during these recent times, I can’t see any solution other than staring down the barrel of a gun. But when I can take a minute to get some rest and step away from the intense electric buzz of the stress, anxiety, and fear, I can see the way all people have survived difficult times throughout history. They just learn to let go. You’ll often hear lines like, “Let go and let God,” or “I put it in God’s hands.”

Those are all quotes that seem quaint and childish to intellectual atheists. But, as a former intellectual atheist, let me tell you, there are depths of suffering where the only thing left is God. There is simply nothing left in “you” to keep you going. “You” are done. And the only power you have left is a force that exists beyond you.

This is basic AA. As they say, “there are no atheists in foxholes.” It’s true. If you’ve ever been there, you know it’s true.

I don’t get hung up on the language. I’m not trying to be on team Fundamentalist Christian. So I don’t have to say it in a way that dog whistles to them that I’m one of them. But I’m not afraid to say it in a way that might offend my intellectual friends. Take me or leave me. It’s what we do as humans. In group / out group. Whatever. This is my journey, and if you can’t be friends with someone who “thinks like that,” then it is what it is. I think my Anthroposophical friends like this story. But that’s just a coincidence. I assure you, I’m not doing it to be on their team either.

(There is only one team: Team Earth.)

At my worst, I think my anger was all that was keeping me going. But at my best, I know there is something more. It’s the collective. It’s the One. It’s the cosmic pulse that is as real as the 4 cosmic forces.

Currently, modern physics recognizes four fundamental forces that govern the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. While four are confirmed, scientists are actively investigating the potential existence of a fifth force to explain anomalies like dark matter, dark energy, and unusual particle behavior.

Maybe that fifth force is what keeps us all going. Maybe that’s what I’m talking about. Who knows. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to be defined.

Sometimes you just let the river take you where it’s going to take you. You stop fighting. You stop wishing for something that will never be.

You just trust the river.

I love you,

Sage

P.S. Don’t kill yourself. As my father-in-law Earl would say (probably because he contemplated suicide more than the average person), “Suicide is a long-term answer to a short-term problem.” Things always change. Just hang on through this rough patch.